Malware

Viruses, Spyware, malicious and uninvited software- often the cause of PC slowing.

Boot-time scan

A scan of the computer prior to the operating system loading.

Zen and the Art of Virus Removal.

Virus removal is an art, but hopefully this will help. We’ve compiled a checklist to help you make sure all of your malware is taken care of.

If you suspect the PC is infected, install and run avast! 4 Home Edition - FREE antivirus. When it asks you if you want to do a boot time scan say yes. When the boot time scan finds something, it is safe to delete whatever it asks you to delete- just press “2″ . Deletions are safe, but it would be even safer if your important data was backed up. Just running an avast scan could very well take care of the issue, if not, follow the steps below.

Sometimes you may think you’re infected, when in reality it’s something else (like a simple program error), so be sure to google search some of the symptoms before getting too far into a virus removal.

The Steps: How to remove malware.

1. Boot into safe mode with networking: (To do this, tap f8 in one second intervals as the PC boots up)
2. Remove Temp files (malware likes to hide here, also removing them decreases the amount of time it takes to scan the PC) (Start menu > Run (type in “temp” no quotes), select all, delete all)
3. Remove Norton or McAfee with their respective removal tools if the PC has them.
4. Run Combofix, and Smitfraudfix, if you suspect the pc might have the vundo virus, run VundoFix.
5. Download Avast Free, Download Lavasoft Adaware Free, Download Spybot Search and Destroy
   
   
6. Install Adaware Free in normal mode, update.
   Install Spybot Search and Destroy, update.
7. Reboot and let Avast run its boot time scan, this will probably take awhile.
   Boot into safe mode w/ networking: (To do this, tap f8 in 1 second intervals after switching the power on, and select “safe mode with networking)
   
8. Run Adaware on entire pc, remove all baddies.
   Run Spybot on entire pc, remove all baddies. Immunize computer with spybot, do not install Tea Timer.
9. Run Adaware and Spybot until they run clean.
10. Run an online scanner to verify pc is clean, BitDefender Online Scanner if you have a lot of time to let it scan, otherwise Trend Micro HouseCall or something of the sort.

Closing thoughts

Depending on how infected the computer is. Sometimes it’s quicker and easier to format and re-install, sometimes it’s not. I’ll make sure to have a tutorial on formatting and re-installing soon as well.